Dr. Pan Zhu obtained her B.S. degree in Agronomy at China Agricultural University in 2012. From 2012 to 2017 she investigated the role of a small nucleolar RNA in ribosome biogenesis at the School of Life Sciences of Peking University. After she got a Ph.D. degree in biology in 2017, she became a postdoctoral researcher at John Innes Center and focused on the transcriptional mechanism of the floral repressor gene FLC. She will join Westlake University as an Assistant Professor in 2024 and establish the Plant Flowering and Adaptation Lab.

Flowering time is essential for the reproductive success of a plant and is a key agricultural trait influencing the yield and quality of crops. Altering flowering time has become an evolutionary strategy adopted by plants to maximize the chances of reproduction under diverse stress conditions. Environmental biotic factors such as attacks by pests and pathogens can have a significant effect on plant development including flowering. However, the molecular mechanisms of defense-flowering trade-offs are largely unknown. The lab will aim to decipher the mechanisms underlying the flowering time alteration that ensure successful reproduction before the plant succumbs to the disease. Our study includes three major interconnected directions:

1. The role of nuclear condensates in defense-flowering trade-offs;

2. The molecular mechanisms of mobile macromolecules integrating the defense signals to time the floral transition;

3. The mechanisms of how natural variation influences defense-flowering trade-offs.

Major Scientific Findings

Dr. Pan Zhu has been studying the regulatory mechanisms of plant growth and development. Her work provides important novel insights into RNA processing and single molecule structure as well as how plants sense environmental temperatures and control flowering time. She found the cold-induced FRIGIDA nuclear condensate facilitates autumnal FLC transcriptional shutdown thus enabling plants to effectively monitor seasonal progression. She also demonstrated multiple roles for COOLAIR in FLC regulation including the hyper induction of COOLAIR by freezing temperature, the promotion of FRIGIDA condensation, and a conformational change in COOLAIR structure at a single molecular level. She recently discovered a natural promoter SNP causes variation at FLC in the natural Arabidopsis accessions thus contributing to flowering time variation underpinning plant adaptation.

#These authors contributed equally 

1. Pan Zhu, Michael Schon, Julia Questa, Michael Nodine & Caroline Dean*. Causal role of a promoter polymorphism in natural variation of the Arabidopsis floral repressor gene FLC. Curr Bio. 2023 (in press). 

2. Minglei Yang#, Pan Zhu#, Jitender Cheema, Rebecca Bloomer, Pawel Mikulski, Qi Liu, Yueying Zhang, Caroline Dean* & Yiliang Ding*. In vivo single-molecule analysis reveals COOLAIR RNA structural diversity. Nature. 2022, 609 (7926): 394-399.

(Highlighted in Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2022 Oct; 23 (10): 642-643.)

(Highlighted in Dev Cell. 2022 Oct 10; 57 (19): 2254-2256.)

(Highlighted in Trends Biochem Sci. 2023 Mar; 48 (3): 211-212.)

3. Pan Zhu, Clare Lister & Caroline Dean*. Cold-induced Arabidopsis FRIGIDA nuclear condensates for FLC repression. Nature. 2021, 599 (7886): 657-661. 

(Highlighted in Changing of the seasons - transcriptional buffers against flowering in the cold. Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2021 Dec; 28 (12): 963.)

4. Yusheng Zhao#, Pan Zhu#, Jo Hepworth, Rebecca Bloomer, Rea Laila Antoniou-Kourounioti, Jade Doughty, Amelie Heckmann, Congyao Xu, Hongchun Yang & Caroline Dean*. Natural temperature fluctuations promote COOLAIR regulation of FLC. Genes Dev. 2021,35 (11-12): 888-898. 

(Highlighted in Winter fields antisense RNAs to kick off flowering. Genes Dev. 2021 Jun; 35 (11-12): 785-786.)

5. Pan Zhu#, Yuqiu Wang#, Nanxun Qin, Feng Wang, Jia Wang, Xing Wang Deng* & Danmeng Zhu*. Arabidopsis small nucleolar RNA monitors the efficient pre-rRNA processing during ribosome biogenesis. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2016, 113 (42): 11967-11972.

The full list of publications can be accessed through Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=trXZuZsAAAAJ&hl=en

zhupan@westlake.edu.cn

We have multiple positions available for Postdocs, graduate students, and research assistants (check ‘open positions’ on websites for details). Please send your CV and other application materials via email if you are interested in.